Hand-held mobile electronic devices, such as cellular and digital telephones, are popular for personal and business use. The availability of ready mobile communications has numerous benefits, but cell phone use also may involve risks. Attention paid to the cell phone detracts from the user's ability to pay attention to other things. This is a particular problem when people attempt to use cell phones concurrently with potentially dangerous activities, such as operating automobiles.
Talking on a cell phone generally requires the user to hold the phone to the user's head, such that the audio speaker and microphone are adjacent to the user's ear and mouth, respectively. This usually requires the user to allot sole use of one of the user's hands to the phone. If the user is talking on the phone while driving, then one hand is on the wheel for steering and the other hand is on the phone.
Routine operations that arise while using a cell phone, and others that arise while driving, may lead the user to devote one or both hands to such operations. A driver of a standard transmission vehicle, for example, may need a free hand to shift gears. A driver may need to find change for a toll or to pick up a map. A user of a cell phone, on the other hand, may wish to hold the phone in one hand and use the other hand to operate the phone keypad when dialing. A cell phone user in an animated conversation may even feel the need to gesticulate.
Obviously, there are only two hands to go around. In these and similar situations, the cell phone user/automobile driver typically chooses some sort of accommodation. The user might release his/her grip on the steering wheel, or attempt to steer with his knees, or lay his head over to hold the phone between his ear and his shoulder or otherwise attempt either to free a hand or to use the same hand for two concurrent operations. In many cases, an attempt to perform two operations at once detracts from the effectiveness with which either or both of the operations are accomplished, presenting a danger to the driver, passengers, other drivers, pedestrians, and physical property.
Some states and municipalities have banned cell phone use when driving. Others have mandated the use of “hands free” cell phones or attachments to be used while driving. Such restrictions are widely ignored by cell phone-using drivers.
“Hands-free” phones or phone attachments reduce the need for the user to remove one or both hands from the steering wheel in order to hold the cell phone in an operative position. But hands-free mountings, head-sets and the like are only a partial solution. There is a substantial additional distraction involved with respect to controlling the phone, especially for initiating calls. In order to dial the phone or otherwise operate the phone keypad, there is an even more dangerous distraction, because the user is typically required to look directly at the cell phone keypad and thus takes his eyes off the road.
Cell phones have an array of pushbuttons for making operational selections and for selecting numbers. In a sequence of operations beginning with turning the phone power “on” and proceeding through selecting a “call” function and usually selecting a sequence of numbers, the user must find, select and operate one appropriate key or switch in an array presented on the keypad. The selected switch typically is depressed with a digit (a finger or thumb).
Finding and operating a needed key distracts the operator from the environment, for example decreasing the attention paid to the road while driving. The lapse of attention may be brief, but even an experienced user needs to look at the keypad in order to orient his fingers to a reference position relative to the keypad before beginning a sequence of key strokes. More likely the user watches the keypad and/or display screen continuously, while moving a finger from key to key. To initiate a call, at least a seven or ten digit number must be entered. Whether this takes a long time or a short time and/or whether the user proceeds continuously or intermittently, the user is substantially required to take his eyes off the road and to focus at a closer point, namely on the phone keypad. During the time when his visual attention is on the phone instead of the road, the driver may be oblivious to changes in traffic, or may suffer loss of accurate directional control, and at least has a decreased reaction time to deal with emerging events.
This problem is compounded by keypads or key sequences that require a great deal of attention. For example, keypads with a large number of keys in an array, or with relatively small keys, or keys that are very close to one another compared to the size of fingers, or keys that are distinguishable only by small printed labels, may require undivided attention to operate.
The trend is for cell phones, like other personal electronic devices, to be made smaller and smaller. Small size is perceived as an aspect of quality. Cell phone manufacturers compete to produce the smallest phone on the market. As cell phone size is reduced, keypads become smaller as well, including the size of the keys and the spaces between the keys. Smaller keypads require more attention and care to operate accurately than do older, more-spacious models.
Problems with decreased attention, loss of control and/or decreased reaction time are known and are considered to be contributing causes of certain accidents. Attempts have been made to lessen the visual interruption and distraction entailed in dialing a cell phone. For example, a cell phone may be programmable to store a database of frequently called numbers, or a scrolling list of selectable names and corresponding phone numbers. An entry is selected and the associated number is called using a minimal number of keystrokes.
Scrolling databases reduce the need for keystrokes at times, but they too are only a partial solution to the lapse-of-attention problem. It is still necessary for the user to find and operate some keys. The user still must look at the phone, specifically at the scrolling display, to make a selection. Under some circumstances, driving and selecting a phone number using a scrolling name database, can require at least as much attention as dialing a remembered number. Depending on the number of names programmed, it may take longer to find and select a desired name/number than it would have taken to dial it outright.
A similar function to scrolling is the “speed-dial” function. As in a scrolling list, a full telephone number is pre-programmed and can be selected for dialing using a smaller number of keystrokes than is provided for all the digits of the number. Typically, the user's most frequently called numbers are associated with selected speed-dial numbers. For example, after selecting a speed-dial function, the “1” key may cause the phone to dial the user's home, the “2” key to dial his place of work, etc. This is helpful but still requires attention. The user needs to look at the phone.
Lighted dials are helpful. Standard keypad layouts are helpful. Typically, numeric keypads are standardized to the same layout as adding machine keypads. This is particularly helpful if the user is a regular user of such a numeric keyboard. Although any arrangement that reduces the need to look at and operate keys on the phone is helpful, known cell phones do not adequately address the problem. While dialing the phone or while selecting a function or selecting a number for the phone to dial automatically, a user is visually and mentally distracted. The user is not on the lookout for danger. If the user is driving an automobile, an accident may be waiting to happen.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,358—Grant addresses certain problems associated with dialing a phone while driving. Grant discloses a telephone handset having a head and base portions, with the head portion having a plurality of keys arrayed circularly, namely in a clock-face pattern. A rotatable plate is provided at the center of the array and has detents defining number positions, i.e., positions at which the rotatable plate can be placed to correspond to selected ones of the keys. The rotatable plate and keys serve as two alternative methods for selecting numbers on the clock face when controlling or dialing the phone.
In Grant, whether using the keys or the rotatable plate controller, the user operates the phone with his or her index finger. The phone may be held in one hand and operated using the fingers of the other hand. Alternatively, the user's thumb and the fingers other than the index finger, are placed on opposite lateral sides of the handset housing for holding the housing. The rotatable plate is in a position to be operated by the index finger.
For one-hand operation during dialing, it is necessary in Grant to hold the phone from the front. The index finger is the natural finger to use for tracing a circle on the front of the housing, specifically for operating the rotatable plate. The index finger is generally articulated for hinging at the proximal end of the finger (the knuckle) on an axis in the plane of the palm. Apart from hinging, this knuckle joint has limited lateral freedom. The index finger can trace a circle having a diameter of a few centimeters, with good dexterity.
An object in Grant is to reduce the need to look at the keypad to operate the keys. This object would not be met simply by providing the rotatable plate alternative form of input, because the user would need to look at the position of the plate to determine the number being selected at any given detent position, by regarding the plate as a rotatable pointer. Therefore, the Grant cell phone also comes with a built in audio synthesizer that audibly announces the number selected by the rotatable plate.
In Grant, the user manually selects a number and the processor in the cell phone announces the selection in a manner recognizable to the user. It would also be possible to envision a processor having voice recognition capability, whereby the user announces a number and the processor recognizes and dials it. There have been substantial advances in data processing power and the cost of digital memory is trending down, but voice recognition systems and similar technically demanding solutions might not be the most cost effective way to deal with the dangers of cell phone attention lapse.
A need remains for an optimal solution in terms of effectiveness, low cost, ease of operation and the like, that will enable a user to operate a cell phone keypad with little or no need to avert his eyes and attention to the keypad, and perhaps away from emerging dangers, for example encountered while driving a car.